Movie review | No One Lives: Spatter-fest reveals secrets too quickly

Friday

May 10, 2013 at 12:01 AMMay 10, 2013 at 10:10 AM

In a remote roadhouse on a rural back road, the young couple (Laura Ramsey and Luke Evans), towing all their worldly possessions in a trailer for their cross-country move, are just settling in for dinner when the thugs arrive. "We don't want any trouble." When has that line ever dissuaded anyone from doing their worst? Never.

In a remote roadhouse on a rural back road, the young couple (Laura Ramsey and Luke Evans), towing all their worldly possessions in a trailer for their cross-country move, are just settling in for dinner when the thugs arrive.

“We don’t want any trouble.”

When has that line ever dissuaded anyone from doing their worst? Never.

What the couple doesn’t know — but we do — is that these five backwoods Goths have just botched a simple burglary and had to slaughter a family that interrupted the heist.

And it is only when the blood spatters and the screams peal into the long, dark night that we figure out why this is titled No One Lives.

Ryuhei Kitamura (The Midnight Meat Train), working the script of first-time writer David Cohen, wrings a few jolts and some mordant laughs. No One Lives has to give away its biggest, best secret — the killers have messed with the wrong guy — far too early for its own good. The victims may be brave, but their response to the turnabout doesn’t make them put on their thuggish thinking caps. That robs the picture of suspense, although the odd moment of compassion kicks in, making us fear for this or that character’s fate.

Evans (Clash of the Titans) is no Dexter, but he handles the rare wry moments well, even when covered in gore. Adelaide Clemens (Silent Hill: Revelation) lets us see the desperate wheels turning as Emma, another hostage, starts computing her odds: “My best hope of escape is while he’s killing the whole bunch of you.”

Her best hope, and ours, is that the title is a lie. But, with every scene, Evans tries to dash that hope until the red stuff oozes out.

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